The Costa Hummer 
bout or bloody fight we could not at first tell. We did, however, hear 
sundry squeaks of the quality but not the duration of the male’s courtship 
screech, and these led us to suppose that the sound is really vocal and not 
one made, as others have surmised, by the rush of air against set wings. 
After a moment one bird emerged from the blur and buzzed off for the 
hills, rather wobbly as to manner, but very definite as to purpose,—which 
was, manifestly, to get as far away from that irate female as the Lord 
would let him. We had witnessed one of those painful passages which 
mark the inevitable rup¬ 
ture in the domestic 
relations of all hum¬ 
mingbirds. Immediately 
thereafter the more 
deadly of the species 
took her place upon the 
eggs, and she swayed so 
gracefully in the wind, 
and she sat so nicely for 
her portrait, and vindi¬ 
cated so completely her 
right of ownership, that 
we left her, as her erst¬ 
while lord had done, in 
undisputed possession. 
But the manner of 
this portraiture deserves 
a word, lest our readers 
should suppose our hon¬ 
ors too hardly won. On 
this occasion it was no 
time at all until my 
assistant was holding the 
weed-stalk so as to keep 
the bird in the sun; and 
only a little while later 
he could stroke her 
breast. Once or twice 
she broke away when 
William started to oust 
her with a finger, but 
our last passage was a 
tete a tete, in which I 
Taken in Riverside County 
LADY COSTA 
Photo by the Author 
949 
